


Riptides

by Kuleshov



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4699877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuleshov/pseuds/Kuleshov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Using their potential victory at a beach volleyball tournament as leverage, Yamaguchi prepares himself to confess his feelings to Tsukishima. But as the tournament unfolds in unexpected ways, Yamaguchi becomes less and less certain if things will work out the way he wants them to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riptides

A few blocks south from Yamaguchi's house, across from the stationary store, was a parking lot bordered by a four-meter high concrete wall. For the first full week of August, during the off-hours of the salon, cell phone repair shop, and wholesale seed store that shared that space – Yamaguchi practiced alone. Using a meter stick, chalk, and masking tape, he recreated the dimensions of a volleyball net and court along the wall. The lines were imperfect, and the window of time between the shops closing and sunset was only a little more than an hour. Nevertheless, Yamaguchi only had until the weekend to better hone his footwork, toss, accuracy and power. 

By Friday, he was working on a new approach to his serve. He took one long stride with his left foot – follows by two quicker steps – and lifted the ball as he jumped. Upon service, the ball rolled against the tip of Yamaguchi's fingers. His heart sank as it traveled to the wall, thudding only a few centimeters above the slight dip in his makeshift net line. 

“You're tossing the ball too far in front of yourself.”

Yamaguchi turned at the sound of a familiar voice to find Tsukishima with a plastic bag dangling in his fingertips. 

“I've been trying to keep my toss lower so I can hit the ball sooner,”Yamaguchi explained, “but since I hit the ball sooner, I'm having some trouble figuring out the difference in timing.” 

The volleyball came to a stop at Yamaguchi's ankle. He reached out with his foot and began to roll it under the toe of his shoe. Tsukishima reached into the bag and tossed Yamaguchi an ice cream. Yamaguchi, thrown off by the surprise throw, fumbled it in his hands for a moment. His eyes lit up when he discovered it was pear-flavored.

Tsukishima sighed. “You really need to take it easy once in awhile.” 

He unwrapped a blue popsicle and studied the network of masking tape. “How long have you been practicing with this?”

“Since Monday,” Yamaguchi said.

“Is it useful?”

“I think so. It's not easy to judge when you're alone.”

When Tsukishima finished off his ice cream, he picked up the volleyball and landed a softer, underhanded serve from the corner of the boundary line to the middle of the wall. “We're going to destroy the competition,” he said. The ice cream stick bobbed in his mouth. “From what Tanaka's said about it, the prize is nice and the competition is popular, but the tournament doesn't draw in many additional visitors, so it's mostly families and friends playing casually.”

Yamaguchi sat down on a parking curb and rested his chin on his knees. “Have you ever been to Onjuku?”

“No,” he said. “I like beaches though, especially at night when its quiet. My parents told me that once when we were passing through Jodogahama, I fell asleep with in the window open – that I slept the whole time with a smile on my face.”

Yamaguchi was previously unable to imagine Tsukishima smiling in his sleep. The picture he usually brought to mind felt inauthentic, like a photograph where somebody had cut around that permanently-uninterested look of Tsukishima's and glued it upside down. But when Yamaguchi thought about it – thought about his own feet buried in the sun-soaked sand and the misted smell of brine and salt settled deeply in his nose, there was a feeling of peace that made it completely convincing. 

Tsukishima crumpled the grocery bag and stuck it in the pockets of his shorts. “I'm heading home,” he said. “We're meeting at the station at 7:00 tomorrow, so you should probably be at my house no later than 6:00.”

“Got it!”

Tsukishima picked up the ball and passed it to Yamaguchi. As Tsukishima headed toward the road, Yamaguchi called after him. It was an impulse; part of him began to stand up to follow after Tsukishima. He practically had to hold himself to the curb. 

“I have to keep practicing,” he said, gravely. “We have to win.”

An assured smirk drifted across Tsukishima's face. “I'll see you tomorrow.” 

 

Most of the morning was spent southbound on the Tohoku Main Line. It was clear that almost nobody on the team was able to get any sleep the night before. Within the first ten minutes of the ride, they dozed off to the train's low electric hum. Other than Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, the only other person awake was Tanaka, who was further toward the front. Keeping the silence, he occasionally communicated to the other two with the occasional thumbs-up and smile, or pieces of candy thrown back their way. 

At Tokyo Station, everybody hurried to transfer at the Sotobu Line. The highschoolers had a hard time keeping together among the tide of weekenders flocking to the beach. It was only because of Hinata and Kageyama, arguing loudly about which part of the train would be the least crowded, that the rest of the team was able to relocate and establish seating arrangements as a group. The team piled onto the train, squeezing through the narrow conditions past purses, backpacks, and elbows. 

It was while Yamaguchi and Tsukishima were packed together that Yamaguchi saw a chance. Tsukishima placed his bag below the seat and sat down, and Yamaguchi did the same. Once his bag was stowed away, he unzipped the front pouch and pulled out a plastic case with a folded note and a burned CD. Slowly, he unzipped the side pocket of Tsukishima's duffel bag and slid it in next to a toothbrush and bottle of sun lotion.

“Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima said.

Yamaguchi jumped and smacked his knee against the bottom of the seat. “Yes?”

“My headphone cable is stuck between the seats.”

“Sorry, Tsukki!”

Yamaguchi reached up and freed the cord. He zipped up the bag, took his seat, and spent the rest of the ride with his head against the glass, stealing glances every few minutes of Tsukishima's reflection in the opposite window, barely visible from the glare of the morning sun.

The team arrived at Onjuku by 10:45 AM, walking from the station along the canal toward the beach. Tanaka directed the group towards the large cactus that read “Amigo Onjuku” and took a place promptly at its base, where a line wound along the sandy path.

The puzzled looks on everybody's faces was his cue. “This is the line for registration,” he said. 

He shaded his eyes with his hand and stood on his toes as he scanned the attendance. “It's a big line, but it goes by quickly. I'm guessing we have about an hour before we reach the sign-up table.”

The group began to talk excitedly. Tanaka and Nishinoya, being the eldest in the group, hushed the others and gathered them in close. “I know we don't have the benefits or the support of a whole team, but we certainly have enough to give these kids and geezers one hell of a scare. With Kageyama as setter, Hinata as decoy, Nishinoya and Tsukishima on defense, me as your intimidating but handsome captain, we have the foundation of one of the strongest teams this beach has ever seen. On top of that...”

Tanaka broke the huddle and gestured to Yamaguchi. “Yamaguchi here has been practicing his serves all week. From what Tsukishima has been telling me, it sounds like we're all in for a tournament like no other.”

Eveybody's eyes fixed on Yamaguchi, who turned his gaze to the seams at the tips of his shoes. Feeling a wave of heat rising up to his neck and over his face, he stepped into the shade of the cactus and sat down on a patch of dry grass as Tanaka led the team on in a pep cheer. Tsukishima sat down next to him. “We've got a whole day of being in the sun,” he muttered. “Might as well stay in the shade as long as we can.”

Tsukishima opened the side pocket of his bag and reached his hand in From the corner of his eye, Yamaguchi could see the CD case, a mere half-centimeter or so from Tsukishima's reach. Time had only began to fade into slow motion when Tsukishima grabbed the sun lotion by the bottle's lid and snapped the spout open. 

Yamaguchi drew the same circle over and over in the sand with his finger. “My serves still aren't perfect, you know.”

“So?”

“I don't mean to sound like I'm not confident, but ever since I got the phone call to join you guys in a tournament, I knew I wasn't the first choice. Now that everybody knows about how I've been practicing –”

“Are you mad that I told Tanaka?”

“Not mad, just... nervous I suppose.”

Tsukishima ran a dab of lotion across his left forearm. “You're going to make mistakes. We all are. In this tournament, you're going to be on the court the entire time for each game. If you don't make a mistake, then it's probably because you're not taking any risks or you're slacking off. If you miss the ball diving for it, and get a mouthful of sand: good. The more effort you put into any attempt to keep the ball up or to score a point, the less each mistake will feel like failure. Just give it all you got, stop complaining.” 

Yamaguchi nodded solemnly. As the line shifted and the team drew closer to the ocean, he found himself feeling much more enthusiastic. He thanked Tsukishima for what he had said, telling him that his words reminded him of the sort of thing a captain would say. Tsukishima acted dismissively toward the thought but Yamaguchi had been around him far too long to know when his friend was genuinely moved by somebody's praise.

The staff at the registration table directed the Karasuno boys to the volleyball nets, where teams as small as three players shared two nets and open space designated for practice. Most of those standing at the net practiced spiking exclusively, while the others scattered around the beach practiced volleying the ball back and forth. Kageyama seemed irritated. “None of these spikers are being tossed to; their setters are not using appropriate techniques. The people passing to one another aren't even moving to chase the balls. Are we the only legitimate team?”

Tanaka adjusted his bag's shoulder strap. “This tournament has only been happening for four years, and since the beginning I have seen only a handful of competitors who actually function as a team. It takes awhile for something like this to catch on, but in a few years I'm sure you'll see better teamwork. In the meantime, let's get ready to win this thing!”

Almost everybody in the vicinity let the volleyballs drop to the sand as they turned to watch Tanaka kick off his shoes, rip off his shirt, and begin shouting and cheering. Nishinoya and Hinata both joined in and the spectacle grew even more ridiculous. Yamaguchi, in a rare moment – perhaps moved by the importance of this tournament to him – was seized by his heart, thrumming with both lightness and force that made his whole chest resonate. He took one step forward, his hands clenched at his side, and cheered along, driven for the first time in a long time by sheer instinct. Kageyama and Tsukishima, meanwhile, tried not to look like they were associated with the others.

The Karasuno boys drew a level of attention to themselves that lasted the entire tournament. From game one, the first team to play them spent time between each serve exchanging nervous glances. Karasuno won against the first few teams by landslides: 25-3, 25-1, 25-5. Their confidence grew exponentially with each win. Tanaka, overtaken by the importance of his role as the acting captain, suppressed his most aggressive impulses to showboat, and kept himself and his teammates levelheaded and respectful.

During the fourth match, riding the confidence and encouragement exuded by his teammates, Yamaguchi decided to finally show both the opposing team and his teammates what he had been practicing so hard for. He took three strides back from the line. His teammates, noticing the departure from his safer serve, gave him the encouragement he needed. “You've got this Yamaguchi!” shouted Hinata. 

Yamaguchi practiced his serve's footwork in his backyard, in his room, running errands for his family. It was practically second nature. He took the first stride, and upon shifting his weight to the second, he noticed a difference. The sand was much more forgiving; each step sank and slowed him. He lifted the ball and jumped, but he couldn't pull himself as high as he needed to. The ball landed on the tips of his fingers, bending them back painfully. The ball traveled with a heavy backspin and skidded against the top of the net, rolling back to their own side. 

“Don't mind!” Nishinoya called.

Yamaguchi flexed his fingers and felt the dull ache throb between his knuckles. He thought about Tsukishima, and what he had told him about risk and effort Yamaguchi took a few deep breaths and prepared for a return serve. 

The points in that game were easy to make, the competition much more casual than anything they had endured in school. Some of them had never played volleyball outside of the usual competitive nature. For Kageyama, this was especially upsetting. There was a certain lack of basic volleyball knowledge among the other team that overrode his desire to win. While playing in position two, Kageyama couldn't help but order the other team around, occasionally and very bluntly pointing out where each of their plays went wrong, how they should correct their posture, and how to more effectively block. Hinata tried keeping him quiet, but it was never much use. 

The games continued on in a similar fashion: 25-8, 25-9. Kageyama complained between one of the matches, “It doesn't feel like we're actually playing.”

The landslides by which the Karasuno team was winning meant fewer rotations for Yamaguchi to have a chance to serve. Out of ten games, he only served a total of seven times. With each serve, he attempted to adjust his footwork, the power in his toss, his jump. Some of them worked, but not with the power or skill Yamaguchi had been aiming for in his practices. He became more frustrated with each attempt. His frustration led to more mistakes. By the eighth game, Yamaguchi's combined faults gave the opposing team eleven points. At the end of the game, Yamaguchi found himself wanting to be replaced by another member. He yearned badly to watch from the sidelines as Asahi, Daichi, Sugawara or Ennoshita filled his place with more experience and skill. He was about to ask Tanaka if he could sit the rest of the tournament out when Tanaka slapped him on the shoulder and pulled him in close. 

“Just have fun with it,” he said. “If you don't want to hit an amazing serve, don't hit an amazing serve. Do what you need to do to enjoy yourself. If we lose, we'll still spend the rest of today relaxing at one of the best beaches in Japan. It's a win-win. Got it?”

Yamaguchi nodded meekly. Tanaka shook his head. “I know you can do better than that! Where's the Yamaguchi who was getting all fired up before the tournament! Are you ready?”

Yamaguchi felt his anxiety growing. It was only when the teams were called over for the ninth match that he was able to take a full breath. Yamaguchi took his position and prepared to play.

The ninth team saw Karasuno's match, and so began the set with a lot of power and aggressive spiking. However, their plan to intimidate was overshadowed by their lack of control. Almost every ball ended up being played directly into the hands of Nishinoya. By the tenth point in a row, the opposing team's confidence fell, their power shortly following. The game ended so quickly that Karasuno didn't even make a full rotation, and so Yamaguchi, relieved not to have relived the same embarrassment from his previous games, had time to compose himself for the final match.

The opposing team, the returning champions of two years, were the first to serve. Right from the outset, the server aimed at Yamaguchi. The serve was powerful and straightforward enough to receive, but their offensive strategy was conspicuously mean-spirited. Their setters frequently prepared their attacks to fall directly on Yamaguchi, no matter whether he moved to the front toward the net or to the back of the court. Despite the success of his efforts in receiving and upholding the rallies, the team never wavered in their approach. Spike after spike, Yamaguchi could feel the weight of their targeting, the weight of being considered the weakest player, their constant attempt to exploit a single player. 

At 24-5, the Karasuno team still had an incredible lead. Yamaguchi rotated to position one for the final point. He spun the ball in his hands, kicking up sand from the seams of the ball. Tanaka waved to him from position two. He said in a low but assuring voice, “Have fun with it!”

Yamaguchi had successfully ignored the audience for the previous matches of the tournament. But now, as a group of high school kids were so close to becoming the new champions, they had gained something of a following, especially with the younger kids, who either watched in unblinking awe, or joined the trademark established earlier by Tanaka by ripping off their shirts and hollering incoherently. 

It was the final point; the prize was as good as theirs. Yamaguchi tried to keep the image of the beach in his head, the warm breeze on a clear night. He stepped forward toward the line and made the serve, a simple overhand serve. No jump, no running start. Nothing. The ball cleared the net with zero difficulty and was received just the same. Yamaguchi moved forward into the court to begin the rally. 

The rally, too, went exactly as Yamaguchi predicted. The moment the ball was put into Kageyama's control, he shot it across the net to Hinata, who dug the ball into the far corner on the opposing team's side. The game was over. Tanaka, holding back all of his celebration until the end, threw Nishinoya over his shoulders and pumped his fists in the air. The fanfare was small but uproarious, with the team's meeting at the middle to shake hands before dispersing for their respective rewards. The children, seeing how Tanaka threw Nishinoya above his head, all gathered around Tanaka with their hands outstretched toward him, all crying “Me next!” in unison. 

The crowd gathered on court to congratulate the final two teams. Hinata and Kageyama, having taken out most of the competition with their unprecedented coordination and speed, were swarmed with questions, photos, and even a few autographs. Yamaguchi hung back, eventually volunteering to help the event staff with dismantling the nets and cleaning up. 

By the time the Karasuno boys made it to the hotel, the sun was just beginning to touch down on the evening horizon. The team was given two rooms to split between the six of them, which came as a surprise to everyone. “You would think with first prize,” Tsukishima said, “the reward would be separate rooms.”

“Well, I mean, all-expenses-paid has to have some limit,” Tanaka said. 

“Might be the reason this competition isn't too big with others...”

“Well, the more people in more room, the more fun we'll have together.”

Hinata piped up. “It'll be just like training camp!” 

“That's the spirit!”

Nishinoya, Hinata, and Kageyama went to the one on the left.; While Tanaka, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi went to the room on the right. Yamaguchi hadn't even set his bag down before the loud thump of several bodies hitting the floor rumbled into his room, Hinata and Kageyama's arguing a muffled struggle.

“I put my things on the bed first!” Hinata said.

“I called it at the doorway!”

The three of them listened through the wall. Tsukishima muttered with bewilderment. “Already?”

Tanaka cackled and dropped his own belongings. “Well, how about it?”

“How about what?”

Tanaka crouched down and held his arms out wide, positioning himself to wrestle. “Anybody willing to fight me for a bed to themselves?”

Tsukishima set his bag down and began removing his things. “I don't mind one way or another.”

“How about you Yamaguchi?”

Yamaguchi saw the easy chance to sleep next to Tsukishima. He had to take it, but he didn't want to seem too eager. He shrugged. “I'm fine with whatever,” he said.

Tanaka's resigned reluctantly. “Aw come on, you guys make it too easy." 

As everybody settled in, the atmosphere became heavy with fatigue. Playing volleyball for several hours in the sun took its toll; Tanaka fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow, his arms and legs sprawled across the comforter. Tsukishima retired to reading a book in the patio's shade, reclining in a wooden chair with his feet on the railing. Yamaguchi stood beside him, staring off at the sky in total silence – ears tuned to the low murmur of music emanating from Tsukishima's headphones. At one point, he got up, moved over to Tsukishima's bag, and unzipped the bag. The CD was still in the same place, though slightly pushed further toward the bottom of the pocket from other things being stacked on top of it. Yamaguchi removed the CD and returned outside. He leaned against the frame of the sliding door.

“Tsukki,” he said. “Let's go down to the beach.”

“We spent all day on the beach Yamaguchi.”

“We were on the beach,” he said, “but we didn't go in the ocean and swim or anything.”

“We'll be doing that all day tomorrow.”

Yamaguchi protested. “Then tomorrow will be over before we know it. I want to go now.”

“Nobody's stopping you.”

Yamaguchi tapped the CD against the back of his leg. “I really don't want to be by myself.”

Tsukishima pulled the book closer to his face. Yamaguchi looked out toward the water. “I just can't stay here and do nothing,” he said. 

Yamaguchi stepped back inside and placed the CD back in the pocket, then removed it and placed it instead in the main pocket along with his clothes and towels. Tanaka stirred in his sleep; Yamaguchi froze. When Tanaka rolled over, he folded the CD into a t-shirt, grabbed his keycard and headed down to the lobby.

The evening's arrival engulfed the beach in a warm shade that drove the out-of-towners back to the trains and freeways home, but a fair number of families, hotel guests, elderly couples with dogs, and local surfers continued to thrive in the cooler conditions. Yamaguchi walked the length of the beach, crossing the shallow part of a nearby estuary that snaked its way across the sand toward the sea. The sky directly above him glowed like neon, with sudden flares of orange woven through the thin clouds dusting across Ajiro Bay. Further out across the ocean, where the evening was just beginning to meet the sky, the colors faded from lavender to byzantium. The sunset, and the feeling of water pulling below and above his sandaled feet, kept his mind at ease.

On the way back, his attention was turned to a sailboat just beyond the harbor's reach It sails puffed against the wind and guided the boat quietly toward the horizon. Yamaguchi watched it grow smaller as it bobbed and rocked on the crest of distant waves.

As he wondered if Onjuku offered any boats or boat trips to visitors, he felt something catch his foot. Yamaguchi stumbled forward, his knees sinking into three small mounds of sand stacked on top of one another.

“My sandcastle!” a voice cried from up the beach.

Yamaguchi looked up and saw a child waddling at full speed toward him. They came to a sudden stop, whimpering as they knelt down to inspect the damage Yamaguchi had caused. 

“I'm sorry!” Yamaguchi said. 

They looked up at him, the look on their face closer to tears than rage. “This was going to be the best sandcastle and you ruined it, jerk!”

The child scrambled to replace the collapsed sand back in the pail. They flipped the pail over and pressed down on the overturned bottom with both hands. They lifted it up to reveal a perfectly shaped structure. Yamaguchi, feeling guilty, offered a hand in constructing a castle. The child, still focused on making more towers with the pail, refused his help. “You're just going to ruin it again.” 

“I won't,” Yamaguchi said. “I can even show you how to make parapets.”

“A what?”

“They look like this,” he said. He took his finger and drew a squared zig-zag shape across the sand. “They go at the top of castle walls.”

The child's curiosity was piqued. They thrust the pail into Yamaguchi's hands. “Fine.”

Of all the things Yamaguchi expected to do at the beach on that day, helping an unknown child with their sandcastle was not one of those things. Nevertheless, he found the work relaxing. With parapets, Yamaguchi also constructed fortress walls and, using a splinter of driftwood, he carved out a set of winding stairs along two of the corner towers. They were imperfect, but Yamaguchi constructed everything with a steady hand and stern focus. The child soon began to mirror everything that he did, and was soon scraping arched windows out from the sides for decoration. 

Time went by with neither of them taking any notice. Eventually the child's parents called them over. 

“Wait one second,” the child said, and dashed off towards their family. Yamaguchi watched as the child tugged on their mother's arm and their mother, carrying an armful of beach accessories, set them on the ground and rummaged through her bag. She pulled out a camera and followed the child. Yamaguchi bowed as she approached. 

“So I see Rei has dragged you into making sandcastles,” she said with a smile.

“Yamaguchi-sensei,” Rei said, holding out a small, empty jar of raspberry jelly. “Look at this!”

It was a small, common beach crab, no wider than Yamaguchi's thumb. He thought it had a naturally mean look in its eyes. He smiled to himself with how much it reminded him of Tsukishima.

“You have to put it on the middle tower,” Rei said. “This is the Crab King! This is its home!”

Yamaguchi was apprehensive. The instant he opened the lid and tilted the jar, the small animal with its spindly legs and jagged little claws made its way across the layer of sand inside. It's claws seemed to close and retract with each scuttling movement it made. Yamaguchi knew instantly that this wasn't going to end well, but Rei was watching excitedly. He took a deep breath and turned the jar upside down in his hand. The crab dropped onto its side and squirmed in his palm. Carefully, he dropped it in the middle of the fortress. It landed right side up and, seeing Yamaguchi's hand, acted as Yamaguchi had expected it to act. It's pinch was slow but lasting, digging in so that even when Yamaguchi pulled his hand back, it maintained a prolonged grip on his skin. Rei laughed. “Oh come on, it doesn't hurt too bad. Mom! Take a picture.”

Rei's mom gave a disapproving look. “Is that how you ask?”

“Can you please take a picture?”

Yamaguchi tried to back away out of the frame, but that did not bode well with Rei. “You have to be in the picture too!”

“That's okay,” Yamaguchi said, holding up his hands. “It's your castle.”

Rei stamped their foot. “No. I said you have to be in the picture!”

Yamaguchi stepped back toward the castle and bent down on one knee to make himself level with Rei. Rei threw their arm around Yamaguchi's shoulder and practically knocked him off balance. “Hold up your fingers!” Rei ordered. Yamaguchi held the pose until the shutter of the digital camera made a quiet beep.

“Let me see!” Rei said, running up to their mom's side and jumping up to take a look at the camera's display screen. “Show Tadashi-sama, too!”

Yamaguchi looked at the screen as Rei went on about how they would have this picture at their show-and-tell when school started again, how they would remember this sandcastle, and how Tadashi-sama was the coolest big kid ever. 

Rei's mother turned to head back, and Rei sided up to Yamaguchi and wrapped their arms around his hip. “I have to go now,” they said. 

In the very next instant, Rei leaped from Yamaguchi's side and dug their heels into the tops of the fortress walls, kicking the sand towers and stomping the moat until the water within it was almost completely gone. By the time Rei's reign of terror was over, there was little more than a mound. Rei ran off after their mother, their laughter dissolving as the distance grew wider. Yamaguchi stood above the ruins of the small castle. He smoothed it over with his foot until there was no trace of it left. His thumb still throbbed from the crab's pinch. There was no blood, but the skin on the inside of his knuckle had swelled and reddened.

 

Yamaguchi returned to the hotel, and wasn't even alone in the room five minutes when Tsukishima entered, his hair flattened and wet from the bath. 

“We were wondering when you'd be back,” Tsukishima said. “Everybody's ready to go downstairs for dinner.”

“You guys didn't have to wait for me, you know.”

“How was the beach?”

“It was okay. Quiet.”

Yamaguchi watched as he unzipped his bag, placing his laundry in a small drawstring gym bag. He wrung his hands, despite his swollen thumb. “What did you pack for the trip?”

Tsukishima looked at Yamaguchi inquisitively over his glasses. “Just usual stuff.”

“Did you pack everything? Toothbrush, money–”

“Yes.”

“If you forgot anything, just... check again and let me know.”

Yamaguchi knew it was impossible to miss this time. He placed it at the top of the bag, in the first shirt, the shirt Tsukishima was now wearing. Yamaguchi wrote his own name on the front. There were hearts bordering his name. He wrote I love you at both the beginning and the end not because he felt it needed to be written so many times but because we wanted to be sure Tsukishima couldn't miss it. How could he just ignore it? thought Yamaguchi. Do I have to say it loudly? How is this not enough? Why does it seem like everything I do and everything I work hard for is never enough?

“The rest of the team is in the other room. Once you're ready, head on over and we'll go down to dinner together.”

Tsukishima left, closing the door behind him. Yamaguchi's chest felt tight as his breaths became shorter. He clenched his fists; his pinched thumb throbbed like a small wounded heart.

 

Yamaguchi went to breakfast early the next morning, sitting with his meal of eggs, toast, and rice at the two-person table in the corner. It wasn't until Tanaka came in that he realized how long he had been staring at his food. Yamaguchi jumped when Tanaka waved a hand in front of his face. 

“You know,” Tanaka said, “for somebody who was out in the sun all day yesterday, I'm amazed by the pale look in your cheeks.”

His smile was faint enough to display his concern. Yamaguchi idly tore at his toast. “I don't really want to talk about it,” he murmured.

“Okay,” Tanaka said. “I'm going to get some breakfast. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Yamaguchi shook his head. Tanaka left and returned momentarily. 

“So,” he said. “We've got a whole day and night in Onjuku. Is there anything you would like to do?”

Yamaguchi rested his chin in his hand and stared out the window at the water. “I saw a sailboat yesterday. I thought it would be cool to... you know.”

“A boat ride, eh? That might be nice. I'll see what the team thinks about it.”

“Please, Tanaka...” said Yamaguchi. “Don't...”

He lowered his head. “You don't have to do anything for me. It's not...well, you know yesterday. Everything was just... Nothing went right for me.”

Tanaka nodded his head. “Yeah, I know how that can feel, but it happens. Nobody has an amazing game every single time.”

“The only difference is that none of my games were any good yesterday.”

“Well, I don't know about that. In fact, you go to serve the final score in our final match.”

“I didn't score the point though.”

Tanaka took a huge bite of his egg. It dribbled down his chin as he spoke. “Is that the only reason you play?” he asked, his mouth half-full. “You want to be the big shot who gets all the points, saves the team from defeat and gets his picture in the paper?”

“Well, no.”

“So what is it then? What's your reason?”

Yamaguchi's cheeks flushed.“Tsukishima wanted to join. I've always liked volleyball, but didn't really consider joining a school team until he expressed his interest.”

Tanaka sat back in his chair, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Yamaguchi clenched his jaw, his chest tightened. 

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” Tanaka said, scoffing. “What for? You gave me the exact answer I was looking for.”

Yamaguchi looked up from his lap. 

“You joined for Tsukishima. In other words, you joined for somebody else; you joined for the chance to be part of something bigger than yourself. You joined not to prove that you are an amazing athlete, but to prove that people can do amazing things together. You're here all by yourself, eating breakfast, thinking about how your performance costed us a few points. You think we're all mad at you, but I can guarantee you that if you asked Tsukishima, or Nishinoya, or Kageyama, or Hinata, they would tell you they feel exactly how you feel. I'm not saying they are disappointed, or ashamed. I'm saying they feel every successful serve and every missed chance at a point. We're a team. We're a team when we win and a team when we fail. We are a team at our strongest and a team at our weakest. I can promise you that if anybody gets angry at you for trying your hardest, you can come tell me, and you can I can show them the type of teamwork that makes hiding a dead body so much easier!”

Tanaka spoke with a certain level of bravado and overconfidence that made it clear he had been rehearsing the last part of that speech much longer than the rest. Yamaguchi was starting to realize why so many of the third years were embarrassed by him, and why younger people – like the children from yesterday – thought he was so cool. Tanaka's ham-handedness was endearing to Yamaguchi; it began to cheer him up. He finally began to make some progress with his meal. He still wasn't sure what he was going to do about Tsukishima, but in Tanaka's company, he felt more at ease. 

The two of them finished their meals, but decided to sit for awhile and wait for the others to wake up. Yamaguchi kept the conversation going. He asked about the final half of the school year, about Tanaka's plans after high school. Tanaka, wanting to be in 'full-relaxation mode', resisted the conversation, so Yamaguchi asked about volleyball. 

“What was your first year like?”

Tanaka laughed. “Honestly,” he said. “It was a bit terrifying. You're familiar with the horror stories surrounding Ukai-sensei's regimen? It was so intense that I probably didn't say more than fifty words for the first year.” 

The thought of Tanaka being the quiet kid was equal parts amusing and horrifying. “How long did it take after Ukai-sensei left for you to start showboating?”

“Real funny,” Tanaka said. “I did it once actually in front of him. I had saved a touched ball heading for the back of the court. I ran from position three to the wall. I leaped from the back of the court, sprung myself off the wall, and pushed off. The ball rolled only hard enough to get to the top of the net, but it rolled over. I was so excited, and the team was so excited. I didn't really know what I was doing; I just sort of fed off the energy of the team, you know? I got laps for the rest of the practices that week and the week after. I know I ran at least forty kilometers by the end of it all, but nobody never let me live that down: the time the quiet kid took off his shirt and swung it around his head. So I just sort of embraced it. Kind of like you, the other day, when we were getting pumped up about the tournament: I had never seen that energy from you before. It was sort of the same for me in that moment.”

Yamaguchi wanted to forget about that. It had been one of those moments where it happened and the thought of it came back to him at inopportune moments to embarrass him all over again in his own head. “I don't think it's quite the same.”

“Of course it is!” Tanaka smacked his hand on the table. “Or are you embarrassed to say we have more in common than you think?”

Soon the rest of the team slowly filed into the room. Hinata and Nishinoya were in a quiet buzz with plans for the rest of the day. Nishinoya in particular, was adamant about taking surfing lessons. Hinata heard about the waterpark and wanted to see what kind of speed he could get on the slides. Kageyama bet him that his speed would be twice as fast, and found himself suddenly on board with Hinata's plan. Tsukishima, trailing behind the rest of them, was nearly finished with the book he began the other day. Yamaguchi sat up in his seat and waved him over. 

Tsukishima put his book down on the table and began serving himself; Yamaguchi stared at the cover of the book. A terrestrial landscape began to fall to night as the sun became eclipsed by some unknown planet or object. With streaks of red running down the letters of the title, Nightfall. 

There was perhaps something that was meant to be foreboding, but the appearance of the stars made the artwork seem serene.

Nishinoya waved his hand in front of Yamaguchi's face. Yamaguchi looked up to find everybody's attention turned to him. “Still with us, Yamaguchi?” Nishinoya asked.

“I'm sorry?”

“What are your plans for today?”

“I... haven't really given it much thought yet.”

“You should come surfing!” Nishinoya said, leaning over Tsukishima. “It'll be more fun with more people. You too, Tanaka! When's the next chance you'll ever get to try to surf?”

“I was thinking about going for a swim,” Tanaka said.

“Surfing is like swimming, but way cooler!” Nishinoya said adamantly. “Besides, I know for a fact girls like surfers more than swimmers.”

Tanaka set both his hands on the table firmly. “Sold,” he said. “Yamaguchi. You should come surfing too.”

Tsukishima spoke up for the first time that morning. “That's something I'd like to see.”

“Oh, he'll show you all right!” 

Tanaka turned to Yamaguchi. “Are you ready?”

Yamaguchi was too overwhelmed by Tsukishima's reaction to voice any dissent, and soon found himself being urged out his his seat by Nishinoya. As he was pulled toward the door, he looked back toward Tuskishima who, along with Hinata and Kageyama, watched in both awe and stupor as he disappeared behind the lobby doors. 

 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning when the three of them stood facing the ocean, the tails of their surfboards stuck in the sand beside them. The sun had yet been out long enough to warm the beach, and so the wind, whipping harder than usual across the sand, made even Tanaka shiver – despite how hard he tried to look unaffected. The instructor, an old. short man with a slight hunch, slowly made his way to the front and stood before the three students. He surveyed their faces wordlessly for a moment, took a deep breath, and then spoke in such a way that reminded them of their middle school graduating ceremony. “Surfing is all about balance. Not only with your body, and your feet, but also the balance with your mind.” 

Yamaguchi looked around for Tsukishima. The instructor moved his hand up and down as he spoke. “As you move between the crest of a wave and the trough, you will fear a similar rise and fall of fear and excitement. Channel that balance, embrace the fear, but suppress the excitement. Fear will make you hesitate; excitement will make you hurry. Both are opposite forms of the same mistake. Keep this in mind as we go through the basics. Don't worry about failure; it is guaranteed on your first day. But so is the measure of success. Looking at you boys, I can tell you are not familiar with the beach or the city surrounding it. That you've come this far is already a form of success. You are trying something new; good work. You there, shorty!”

Nishinoya was quick to let his fuse blow. “You're shorter than I am!”

“Don't roll your eyes at me. This is important. And you, wearing the swim trunks with hearts on them!”

Tanaka tried to straighten out his face as the old man's glance darted in his direction. “You chose a surfboard with flames on it. You're surrounded by water. It says a lot about your personality; you have no room to laugh at your friend.”

“It's better than flowers,” Tanaka said, attempting to pass the mockery onto Yamaguchi. 

The old man turned to Yamaguchi with a satisfied grin. He approached with slow, calculated steps. Yamaguchi turned his eyes toward the sand. When the old man was within arm's reach, he grabbed the surfboard from Yamaguchi and bent it over. “This is the first board I ever had. It was given to me secondhand by my brother. The flowers you think so lowly of are cosmos flowers. They represent tranquility. It's a great beginner's board. Even if your friend doesn't know it, he's got intuition, which puts him a step above either of you.”

He handed the board back. “Take good care of it,” he said. “It's in good condition, but it's old. It's irreplaceable.”

Despite the instructor's playfulness, Yamaguchi felt a sudden amount of pressure on him.

“Well,” he said, returning to his original spot in the sand. “We aren't getting any better just by wiggling our toes in the sand. Let's begin.”

None of them expected the workout that came from the basics of surfing. After briefly learning how to properly maintain the condition of their boards, the three of them practiced popping up – leaping from their stomachs to their feet in preparation for riding the waves. It was one thing after another for the instructor: “You're not jumping up fast enough. That stance is too weak. You're landing too far back on the board. All your weight is on the front foot!” 

The old man was particularly harsh on Yamaguchi. Several times, he stood above Yamaguchi as he practiced. “Look ahead of you when you're popping up. Looking down is how surfers crash into each others. Don't worry about the wave. Don't worry about your feet. Worry about keeping yourself up.”

Yamaguchi's arms were getting tired. He popped up again and the instructor clicked his tongue. “Surfing is a futile sport. No matter how well or poorly you do, you come back to shore. Whatever is waiting for you back at shore, it will be there at the end of your session.”

At last, the four of them paddled out to where the waves crested with white. After a few rounds of riding the waves on their stomachs, the instructor invited them to give standing up a try. “Popping up here is much different than the shore. The board is going to react to the water instantly. There is no room for mistakes in your footing or your balance. Either you do it right and you get a chance to ride it, or you don't and you fall in. You'll be discouraged the first few times you do it, but I have faith in you.”

“Or,” the instructor corrected himself. “Most of you.”

Nishinoya was almost completely asleep on his board. Tanaka flung a handful of water over his face and Nishinoya jumped up, losing balance on his board and slipping off the rear end. “

Good luck!” the instructor said. “I'll be here for you if you need any further instruction.”

Yamaguchi paddled out over the first few waves and turned the board around. As he faced the shore, he found himself scanning the beach. There was no sign of that tall, blond figure anywhere on the sand. He looked back as he paddled evenly, increasing his speed as a wave gradually rose over him and began to push and lift him vertically. He pushed up, swinging his feet into position. He was up only for a second, but he was up. The surfboard veered to the left, into the wave's break. Yamaguchi acted suddenly, tried to veer the board the opposite direction and was almost successful. The surfboard slowed as his heel's dug into the water. The wave rolled over his shoulders and submerged him. 

From underwater, despite the roar of the water above him, Yamaguchi could hear Tanaka and Nishinoya cheering him on. As he resurfaced, Tanaka moved into position for his own wave. Yamaguchi paddled over and awaited his turn again. 

“What do you think?” his instructor asked. 

“I think I get it,” Yamaguchi told him.

The instructor smirked. “Surfing is not something a lot of people ever imagine they will do. They see the ocean, the waves, and they're scared. Drowning, sharks, riptides. Do you know how many people die drowning each year from surfing?”

Yamaguchi shrugged. “A hundred?”

“Much smaller.”

The instructor held up two fingers. “You want to know why it's so much smaller than you think? Because people are much stronger than they give themselves credit for. When people ask me why I've surfed for so long, the answer is always simpler than they want to hear. I tell them “It's because I can,” and they think I'm being terse – that I'm not giving them a real reason. But if you ask me, there is no reason more human than the pure and simple fact that you can.”

The two of them wished Nishinoya luck as he paddled out. “The next time you go out there,” the instructor said. “I'm sure you'll get it.”

 

After the session, the three Karasuno boys thanked their instructor and, in honor of how absolutely cool the three of them were, Tanaka treated all of them to a trip to the nearest convenience store. Nishinoya got a bottle of Pocari Sweat and Yamaguchi, excited to tell Tsukishima about everything that he had missed, got a pear-flavored popsicle from the freezer. He was making his way past the instant coffee toward the counter when Tanaka pulled him back. 

“I'm in love,” Tanaka said. 

He pointed to the woman who had just come through the automatic doors. She made her way to the magazine rack and began to scan the titles. Tanaka shoved his hands in his pockets and pretended to browse the travel-sized toiletries and came to a stop. He picked up a small bottle of hand sanitizer and turned it over a few times. When he put it back, he leaned over the shelf and began making small talk. 

“Are you from around here?”

The girl looked up from her copy of Kinema Junpa, paused, then returned to the page. 

“My name is Tanaka. What are you doing tonight?”

Tadashi and Nishinoya watched from the other side of the store. 

“Isn't that a bit fast?” Tadashi wondered out loud.

“That's just the way Tanaka is.”

“Has it ever worked?”

Nishinoya shook his head. “But you never know unless you try.”

Tanaka returned even faster than he left, grinning ear to ear. “I hope the two of you were watching. You might have learned something there.”

“You got a date?”

“I may not have gotten a date, but it's all about style; it's all about being super chill and composed even when she says no. If a girl says no and you look all bummed, she's going to be like “Man, is this all this guy is about?” But if she says no and you're like Hey that's fine, whatever. She knows you're cool, right?”

Nishinoya was nodding along, but Yamaguchi seemed lost. “But you didn't get the date.”

“Yamaguchi, you're too far in your own head! You're always so worried about everything. You got to be focused but you've also got to have a good time.”

Tanaka slapped Yamaguchi on the back. “Go ahead, give it a try!”

“A... a try?”

“Ask her.”

He looked over at the woman waiting in line for the cashier. She was looking back at the three of them incredulously, no doubt able to listen in on the conversation in such a small building. “I don't think so.”

“She's gorgeous; why not?”

Tsukishima came to Yamaguchi's mind immediately. Of course, Yamaguchi thought the whole thing was absurd: a girl he had no interest in asking, a girl who obviously wanted nothing to do with any of them. But he knew Tanaka and Nishinoya wouldn't let him refuse unless he was brave enough to give them his reason.

“Come on, we're talking about the Yamaguchi who took on surfing and rode his first waves like a total champ.” Nishinoya chimed in. “If you can surf, you can ask a girl out.”

Tanaka and Nishinoya slowly pulled him past the row of drink fridges toward the front, he figured he had nothing to lose. Besides, he thought to himself, I can think of this as practice! Perhaps I ask Tsukishima tonight. Perhaps he says no. I can learn from the rejection now in order to be brave later!

The girl spoke up first. “Hey!”

“Hey...”

Her hand was on her hip, as if she were waiting for something. It made him nervous. 

“How are you?” he asked.

“Good! What's up?”

She spoke fast; it made Yamaguchi nervous, which made him answer impulsively. “My name is Yamaguchi.”

“I'm Hana.”

“So...what are you doing tonight?”

“Why? What do you want?”

“I was wondering if... I'm sorry if this seems weird and fast, and I know that I don't know you but it wasn't really my idea.”

“You're asking me on a date, right?”

“Y...yeah.”

“Right after I rejected your buddy.”

Yamaguchi nodded sheepishly. Hana smiled. “I like that,” she said. “That's bold. Where do you want to go?” 

She seemed to be answering faster with each question. “I don't know!” He answered, lowering his voice. “I'm not actually from around here.”

“Well, I have my own idea,” she said. “Wanna hear it?”

 

On the way back to the hotel, Nishinoya tried to come up with an adequately awesome nickname for Yamaguchi, while Tanaka stared at the name and number added to his kouhai's cell phone contacts. 

“It's got to be something that really says YOU,” said Nishinoya. “You're quiet, and unassuming, but you're tenacious. And a ladykiller. Karasuno's Casanova? No, that's too easy.”

The three of them ran into Hinata and Kageyama in the elevator lobby. The two of them had their phones in their hand. 

“Hey Tanaka,” Hinata said, turning the screen toward him. “Who's this?”

Yamaguchi looked closer. Only because he had been there in the dim fluorescent lighting could he recognize the picture of himself and Hana, snapped sometime while the two of them were talking. 

Tanaka swung an arm around Yamaguchi's shoulders. “I couldn't be more prouder,” he said. “Yamaguchi is going on a date tonight with that beautiful woman.”

“I mean, I get that,” he said, squinting at the screen again. “You mentioned that in the message, but I can't tell what she looks like; the photo is too blurry.”

Yamaguchi asked Tanaka, “Who did you send that photo to?”

“Everyone! The whole team has to know what a smooth operator you are.”

“Is she pretty?” Hinata asked.

“Stunning.”

“Tanaka tried to hit on her first.” Nishinoya said.

“But she liked Yamaguchi more?”

Yamaguchi tried to pull away, but Tanaka tightened an arm around his neck. “My brand of charm isn't for everyone. But you can't deny that my being there didn't help Yamaguchi land a date.”

Yamaguchi pulled out his phone. He opened his recent contacts and clicked on Tsukki's name. In lobby. he typed with his thumb. Please help.

Hinata still wanted more details from Yamaguchi. “What did you say to her? How did you win her over?”

The five of them huddled close like reporters, their bodies pressed forward, ready to lean into every word. Yamaguchi clenched his phone in his hand. “It was, you know. Just small talk. I saw she had the movie magazine in her hand and asked her if there was anything good to see.”

“So are you going to see a movie with her?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said you were going to the beach.”

Yamaguchi scanned the elevators and saw the light above the far left elevator stop on the fourth floor. “It's possible that we're doing both.”

“This girl is older, maybe in college. You've got to work really hard to impress a girl in the city going to college.”

The elevator door opened beside them and Tsukishima peered out. “Yamaguchi. I need you for a moment.”

Hinata called over to Tsukishima. “Yamaguchi's got a date.”

“I know; we all got the text. Yamaguchi, let's go.”

As Yamaguchi slipped away, Tanaka called out to him. “Let me know when you're free! We still need to choose what you're going to wear!”

 

The elevator closed and the car lurched suddenly before beginning its slow ascent. Yamaguchi watched the floors pass below them through the thin crack in the door. When he said “thank you”, it more often sounded like he was grateful for somebody's forgiveness, as if there was a minor fault in his personality that would begin to leak if he didn't apply those simple words to hold it all in. Now was one of those times where he could feel something inside of him about to burst. The elevator reached their floor and let out a loud ding. Yamaguchi felt a sudden release. “I put a CD in your bag,” he said.

Tsukishima removed his keycard from his pocket. “I know,” he said.

They entered the room and didn't turn on the light. The sun pored through the sliding glass from the balcony. The room appeared soft in the muted darkness of that afternoon. 

“What did you think?”

“I don't have a CD player with me.”

“No,” Yamaguchi said. “The note.”

Tsukishima let out a thoughtful sound. He picked up his towel and sandals and looked out toward the water. “You're going on a date tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, your note. It was a lot. But now you're going on a date with this girl...”

“It's not like that.”

“And the note? What's that really like?”

Yamaguchi's body tensed. “Well, tell me what you think. That note has been there since Friday morning and you haven't said anything to me.”

“It's not as easy as you think...”

“You think that this was easy for me? That note was practically the result of being around you for most of my life. This is not just how I feel, this is also how I feel when I want to tell you and tell myself not to because I suddenly get scared. This... this was painful.”

“And you think I can respond to that sort of thing in a day?” Tsukishima shook his head and turned away. He moved over to the desk chair where his swim shorts hung draped over the back. “Honestly, you probably shouldn't invest so much time into me.”

Yamaguchi didn't want the words to sink in; he went out the door and past the elevator. He sped down the spiraling stairwell to the first floor and emerged into the lobby dizzy and aimless. He went through the double doors and down the street. Somewhere behind him he thought he heard one of his teammates call his name, so he started to run. He ran until it hurt to breathe. Yamaguchi missed home, particularly the way the sun – settling against the flat horizon of the countryside – seemed to stay out longer compared to the way it vanished behind the buildings. He wanted the routines back, like school – the type of things that always felt like a guarantee no matter what happened. 

Something drummed against Yamaguchi's leg. He reached in his pocket. There was a message. It was from Hana; it read. “Meet you at the same place. 8:00.”

Yamaguchi checked the time; he had six hours.

 

Yamaguchi arrived twenty minutes early, yet found Hana sitting at the plastic table outside the store with two colas. She waved Yamaguchi over and ordered him to sit down. She slid the cola over to him. He opened it and took a sip, while Hana finished hers off in one gulp and tossed the can into the garbage behind her. “Okay, so here's the thing,” she said suddenly. “Before you say anything or before anything happens, I have to tell you this.”

She straightened in her seat, folded her hands in front of her, took a deep breath and looked Yamaguchi directly in the eyes. It was like earlier, but Yamaguchi could detect a softness in her gaze. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I asked you out, but I already have a boyfriend. I asked you out because I saw you and your three amigos coming up with some weird sort of strategy in the corner. I figured if I asked either you or the tiny one, it would knock baldy down a peg or two.”

Yamaguchi was quiet. “Really?”

“Yeah, I know it was a mean thing for me to do for you, but I figured his reaction would be pretty golden. I'm really sorry that I didn't think it through beyond that.”

“No, it's...”

Yamaguchi found himself pleasantly occupied by the nicknames Hana had given his teammates. “I suppose that I would have gotten a nickname too?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course.” 

She had a hard time looking at him as she spoke. “Something about that hair of yours at the top – the bit sticking up. I was thinking maybe it was a way to contact people in space, like a satellite.”

Yamaguchi laughed, reaching up to the top of his head to flatten it briefly.

“So how did he react?”

“Who?”

“Baldy. Was he mad?”

Yamaguchi shook his head. “He was proud, I guess.”

There was a look of defeat in Hana's eyes. 

“Yeah,” Tsukishima continued. “I'm a year below him, so he claimed responsibility for my success.”

“What a goofy guy.”

He nodded and gestured with his soda. “Thanks for the drink, by the way.”

Hana waved her hand. “I owed it to you. I figured if I was going to lie to you like I did I figured I could make it up to you in some way.”

“I'm actually glad you said that to me though,” Yamaguchi told her. “To be honest, there's somebody else in my life too.”

“You're joking.”

He shook his head. She chuckled and shook her head. “I was so worried. You seem like the quiet, sensitive type, so I figured I was going to ruin your entire week.”

“No, my week has sort of already gone completely wrong.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

Yamaguchi shrugged. “I'm trying not to worry about it, which is mostly why I actually showed up. I figured as long as we can still hang out, maybe I can get my mind off of it for a little while.”

Hana shrugged. “Definitely. You seem decent enough. If you like, I know just the thing to help.”

The two of them left the storefront. Hana led Yamaguchi down to the beach past the south end through a gate whose sign read “No Trespassing”. A path of fragmented stone pieces led them through the fenced in area to another gate that led directly to a private harbor. Hana unlocked it with a key and held the gate open for him. Yamaguchi stepped past her, down the steps and onto the wooden walkway, and felt the water shift below him. The two of them walked down the docks toward the furthest end. There, the tide felt stronger and rocked with more force. Yamaguchi kept his eyes mostly on where he stepped, focused on his balance as the prospect of dry land became further and further away.

“This is it,” Hana said.

She grabbed onto the railing of a sailboat and hurdled onto its deck. The boat dipped with her weight and bobbed back up, yanking its mooring rope hard against the cleat. The boat came down and smacked the dock's rubber guard. Yamaguchi stumbled foward at the small but sudden jolt in the wood, steadying himself on the boat's portside. Hana stood perfectly composed in the middle of the sailboat. “Not bad. Guess those volleyball skills of yours have some use beyond the court.”

Yamaguchi looked at the name painted in flowing black along the hull: Shiosai. “You were at the competition today?” he asked.

“My friends were always big into the tournament, even though they were never great at the game themselves. They're back home from school, so we all went for the sake of tradition. We really liked your team; you guys kicked a lot of ass.”

Yamaguchi climbed into the boat slowly, both hands on the side, one foot secure before the other came around. He took a spot on the cushioned seat across from Hana. “We did okay.”

Hana snorted. “Okay? You won!”

“No, it's just... It was different. The sand... compared to a court, it's... The sun. Sometimes the sun gets in your eyes and you just have to, you know, deal with it. It's harder in a lot of ways. At least it was for me. For everyone else, it was nothing – they all performed their best, but I... and you know, if I do really bad, and we lost, I could blame myself. I can be hard on myself and I would have a reason to be mad. But if I do my worst and we still win, did I even need to be there? Do I have any right to call myself a winner if I was an inconvenience at best?” 

“Well, if it's worth anything, I thought you did just fine. My friends saw what you were trying to do; they saw you were the only one trying jump floats. They thought that was really cool.”

Yamaguchi hung his head. “I practiced those specifically. I practiced them so I would finally be able to do something worthwhile for my serve. I even practiced new techniques but I never got around to even trying them because my regular jump float – ”

“Hold on!” Hana put her hand on his knee. “I can see this has been bothering you for a long time, but you want to know what's worse?”

“What?”

“You won a vacation! This is valuable time your team won! Even if you don't think you deserve it, you know how disappointed I would be if I was your team member and you told me you didn't have a good time? Fuck the tournament; it's over! This is your summer, and it'll be over soon and you'll be back in school and while your team is talking about all the swimming and suntanning they did, you'll only have the memory of moping around!”

“That's not true,” he said. “I went surfing, and I'm hanging out on a boat. These are things that I'll remember.”

Hana paused, then nodded. “Good save,” she said. “Anything else?”

“I built a sandcastle with a little kid. It was a good one, but it got stomped on before I could do anything.”

“I've never been good at sandcastles,” Hana said. “I did get really good at sculpting a turtle in the sand. I remember teaching little kids how to make small ones, and we would make a mommy turtle and a bunch of babies following behind it. It was really cute. Do you like kids?”

“They're okay.”

“I like kids. I don't want any of my own – I feel like parenting is really easy to screw up, but when I get to hang around my sister's kids, it's sort of like being a kid again yourself – they want to play with you. All the responsible stuff belongs to somebody else so I'm all about just playing hide and seek and carrying them around on my shoulders.”

Yamaguchi couldn't help but imagine Tsukishima as a father: applying bandages to his child's scraped knees, dressing them up as dinosaurs for their first and second Halloween, staying awake after humming a lullaby to watch their fist-sized chest puff up and down in a short and even rhythm. He hid his face in his hands, as if his blush would be spotlighted by the clear night's moon. 

“You all right?” Hana asked.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Just, thinking of somebody.”

“Who?”

“Well, remember how we both have somebody in our lives?”

“Ah, so your girlfriend.”

“Not exactly,” he said. “And we're not dating either. It's just, they're really in my life.”

“A casual hook-up.”

Yamaguchi's hairs rose on the back of his neck. “No, not that either! I mean, I intended this trip to be the time when I finally asked to date. I wrote a letter instead, which was probably a bad idea because I wrote so much. If I had asked it would have been harder but much shorter. It wouldn't have been so much to take in all at once. It was probably overwhelming to read.”

“Keep talking,” Hana said, moving slowly toward the sleeping cabin. “I can see where you're going with this, by the way you choose your words. Tell me more about him. What's his name?”

The words felt stuck to his throat. “Tsukishima. He's on the volleyball team with me. We've been friends almost as long as I can remember. He's a little bit taller than me, with short blond hair and thick glasses.”

Hana resurfaced with a bottle in her hand: Cutty Sark. She swirled the bottle to show that it was only three-quarters empty. “Want some?”

Yamaguchi took the bottle and studied the label. “I've never had whiskey before.”

“This one isn't that good, but it's all my mom buys. She always keeps a bottle stowed away here; I think she only buys it because she likes the sailboat. She gets attached to things like that.”

Yamaguchi handed it back. Hana unscrewed the top and took a swig with no hesitation. “So,” she said, coughing a little. “Is he cute.”

“He's very cute.”

“What do you like most about him?”

“His eyes,” he said with no hesitation. “He's always got this look on his face that sometimes looks like he wants people to stay away, but there's something else about his eyes... Every chance I get, I take another look to see if I can figure them out. It's hard though. It's hard for me to look deeply without giving myself away. And, it's part of the reason why I was so afraid to ask him out, but I've gotten so close to him. I feel like the worst thing that can happen, and it would be the worst, is that I've told him and now I'm afraid that I'll lose what I have.”

Hana offered the bottle to Yamaguchi. He took the bottle, sniffed it, and pulled away, the alcohol's hot burn snaking far back into his nose. “That's why this game mattered so much to me. I wanted to win the tournament. I wanted to win the night at the hotel. I wanted to feel confident sleeping next to him. But because I played so badly, I feel like it was something telling me that nothing is going to go right.”

Yamaguchi tried to sip the booze. It was painful on the tongue and even more painful to swallow. Hana instructed him to throw it to the back of the throat – avoid the taste buds. It didn't make it better but it did make it easier. She took her turn once he was finished with it.

“I'm not sure if that makes sense,” he continued. “But I've never told anybody this, and I've been holding it in for so long that it feels warped and weird and messy and complicated. It's like it changes the more I talk about it, so I can't really say it right.”

Hana shook her head. “You're cute. You're doing just fine.”

“So what do you think I should do?”

“You're asking me?”

“I don't know who else I can ask. What if he stops talking to me?”

“Well, maybe, but...”

Hana kept her phone in her hand while the two of them were in the boat; she began fidgeting with it. “Maybe I don't know you well enough, but I'm going to make an assumption. You're a great person. I think you have great taste in the people you hang around. I mean...”

She gestured to herself with the bottle and splashed a little on her blouse.

“But anybody who is your friend is going to love you, whether as a friend or as a boyfriend or whatever. If Tsukishima doesn't stick around, then he never saw the real good in you – the trust, the sincerity, the loyalty, or the ability to be brave and to say how you feel. If Tsukishima doesn't stick around, I'll kick his ass for you! I'll let him know how good of a person you are.”

Yamaguchi smiled. “I think you've had enough for the night.”

“One more,” she said, putting the bottle to her lips. “For both of us.”

“What's our story for the date?” Yamaguchi asked. “My friends are going to be asking me so many questions.”

She took her sip and passed the bottle. “I've been thinking about this all day; I have a story that baldy will really like.”

 

All the choices for movies at the theater megaplex were bad; Hana is a film student, and as such is very picky. Yamaguchi, unfamiliar with many of her favorites, was invited to watch a movie at her apartment. There, they hung out with Hana's roommate Asano, ordered pizza, and watched an American black-and-white movie about a murderous preacher trying to steal money from a widowed mother and her two kids. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, Hana got up to go to the bathroom. Asano, sitting adjacent to Yamaguchi, began flirting with him with blown kisses and winks. Yamaguchi didn't even finish the story before Tanaka flung himself against his pillow, cursing his bad luck. “When did you become such a lady's man, Yamaguchi?”

Tsukishima, who was lounging on the balcony, laughed freely. 

Yamaguchi shrugged. “It's not such a big thing, honestly.”

“I'm... I need air.”

Tanaka joined Tsukishima on the balcony and included him in the conversation. “Can you believe Yamaguchi? Not a big deal.”

“Well, if I were hanging around you all day, a woman's choice would feel pretty relative.”

Tanaka sighed. “If my head wasn't spinning so much, I'd deck you for that.”

There was a knock on the door and Yamaguchi answered to find Hinata, fanning a full deck of cards in his hand. It began with a simple magic trick, then led to the others coming in for a few rounds of poker. The few rounds led to a few more, and soon enough it was past midnight. Kageyama had passed out at the foot of Tanaka's bedding and would not wake up to anything. The gang, bleary-eyed and overtaken with fits of yawning, still managed to find the energy to draw on his face with one of Tsukishima's pens. Tsukishima especially couldn't help himself, and continued to doodle comically thick eyelashes above and under his eyes, as the rest of the team worked to carry him back to his room by his arms and legs. 

Again, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were alone. Yamaguchi knew now was the time to say something about the note – apologize, explain it better, expand more deeply on his feelings, but he let it pass. He let it pass with neither tension nor resistance. This small amount of time alone, he decided, would be for nothing but the sound of the sea at night – the way Tsukishima described it before. Tsukishima turned back toward the room, and saw Yamaguchi staring directly at him. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” he answered. “This is... This is nice.”

He hiked his thumb toward the sea. There was a pause, then – almost blossoming – a smile on Tsukishima's face. 

“Yeah. It is.”

“Can we...maybe...talk tomorrow?”

Tsukishima gave him a look.

“Or whenever. I'm sorry if I'm bothering you.”

Tsukishima crawled onto the bed, yawning as he answered. “We'll get there soon.”

“Okay.”

Yamaguchi turned off the light and lay down. For a moment, the two of them listened to of the others' murmured conversation in the next room over. Then Tsukishima spoke up. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For the letter,” he said. “I'm sorry I didn't say it before. It's... nice.”

“Tsukki.”

“Yeah?”

“...That was kind of cute.”

Tsukishima scoffed and rolled over on his side, facing away from Yamaguchi. “Shut up.”

On the Thursday night before the trip, Yamaguchi kept himself awake with the thought of the two of them in their own room, with his arm around Tsukishima as they slept. It felt, surprisingly, just as it did then on their final night in Onjuku. As he considered asking Tsukishima if it was okay, he found his attention turned toward the light of the moon illuminating the outline of Tsukishima's body. The sound of wave after wave washed over the two of them, and the warm wind wandered in through the crack in the balcony door. Yamaguchi fell asleep instantly.

 

The team was up early on Sunday to return home. Despite the lack of sleep, Yamaguchi, felt energized. He glanced over at Tsukishima, who was asleep only ten minutes after departure, and saw the familiar bright blue ink – the scribbled, urgently written characters of his own handwriting – of his note sticking out of the breast pocket of Tsukishima's shirt. The paper's unnecessary number of folds had been reversed. Everything Yamaguchi had written and concealed was now facing outwards. Open, though obscured by the pocket. One of the few words readable at the top of the the small square – strict in the legibility and clarity of the characters' lines – was “care”. 

Yamaguchi knew 'care' appeared in the note twenty-two times. The likelihood of the word appearing randomly when the folds were reversed were moderately high. It was pure chance, he decided. 

But he thought about how lucky it was to see those words so close to Tsukishima's heart, and it only made him happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! I never expected myself to be brave enough to write fanfiction, but I did it!  
> Thank you for reading, and thank you for reading this! And this part too, which is so magnificently dedicated of you!  
> Please let me know if you like it, or if you hate it! Hell, even something saying "Yeah, I definitely read it. Can I go home now?" would be totally rad!  
> Thank you so much!


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